The following appeared in the October 7
New York Observer. We can’t remember the Liberal Weekly ever
endorsing a conservative Republican.

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THE NEW YORK
OBSERVER54 EAST 64TH STREETNEW
YORK, NEW YORK 10021(212)
755-2400

Bob Dole, the Right Choice for
'96A Vote for Character Over Sleaze

Editorial

Yes, Bob Dole is a terrible
campaigner. Yes, the Republican Party is filled with neo-Puritans who
would like nothing better than to codify their notions of morality into civil
law.

Yes, the religious right and the
right-to-lifers are wild-eyed fanatics who threaten our hard-won
liberties.

None of these concerns, however, argues
against a Dole Presidency. Bill Clinton's party, after all, is not
without its radicals and crackpots, and Mr. Clinton's skill on the campaign
trail points to everything that is wrong about his performance as
President.

In this election year, character is not
merely one of several issues demanding our attention. It is the
only issue. That makes our decision easier. Bob Dole has
character, and Bill Clinton has none. So Bob Dole is our
choice.

The President has spent much of the last
year or so cultivating the image of First Father, the man to whom we would
gladly entrust our children. The notion, of course, is
ridiculous.

If the President wishes us to think of
him as a member of the family, two comparisons come to mind. There's Mr.
Clinton as the scarred and terribly insecure child who will do or say anything
to get in good with the cool kids in the schoolyard. Then there's Mr.
Clinton as a salacious, middle-aged uncle who disrupts the holidays by passing
lewd remarks in front of his teenaged nieces and talking smugly about his days
in Canada during the Vietnam War. While both spectacles are embarrassing
for different reasons, Mr. Clinton's Presidency has been embarrassing for many
reasons.

There have been
administrations worse than Mr Clinton's, but rarely, if ever, has there been
one that so often inspires shame. We have been embarrassed for nearly
four years. We have suffered too long the sins of those yahoos Mr.
Clinton transported from Arkansas, so many of whom seem to have spent the
entire term answering prosecutors' questions. There was a time when the
nation looked at the White House as a symbol of leadership, of resolve and of
character. The President served not only as an elected leader, but as a
bastion of the qualities we liked best in ourselves, qualities that we liked
best about America.

In turning the White House into a
better-dressed version of Animal House, Mr. Clinton has managed to
squander the respect that the American people always have had for the office
of the Presidency, even when they disagreed with the person who held the
title. Instead of a role model, we have a floozy who will consort with anyone
if it means a bump in the popularity polls. Instead of a man of
character, we have a bunch of characters, most of them acting with all the
discretion and sophistication of the denizens of Dogpatch,
U.S.A.

Mr. Clinton has damaged the office to
which he was entrusted and the nation over which he presides. There
actually once was a time when the President of the United States was thought
to be the leader of the Free World. After four years of Mr. Clinton, the
President is now just another figure on tabloid television. We used to
ask our Presidents about great issues of war and peace. We ask Mr.
Clinton about his underwear. Worse, he gives us an answer. In the
end, he is nothing more than a flâneur and a poseur, "at best mistaking the
shadow of courage for the substance of wisdom," as F. Scott Fitzgerald
wrote.

Mr. Clinton's wife, Hillary, has been a
full partner in this sickening spectacle. Her self-righteousness and
transparent piety have not averted our eyes to her slimey dealmaking and
fanciful fiction-telling. She once thought of herself as the scourge of
Richard Nixon. Nowadays, as a practitioner of the politics of paranoia
and self-pity, all she lacks are hunched shoulders and a five o'clock
shadow. She virtually ran as Mr. Clinton's running mate in 1992.
Now we have a chance to rid ourselves of both. A perfect
twofer.

The Republican Party has provided a
flawed but highly acceptable antidote to the dumbing-down of the White House
and the trivialization of the nation's highest office. Bob Dole is
everything Bill Clinton isn't. (The same could be said of Elizabeth Dole and
Hillary Clinton.) After more than 40 years of service to his country, Mr. Dole
has shown himself to be a man of character, a man who has put the nation ahead
of self. So, too, is he a man who has no need to consult pollsters and
swamis to figure out what he thinks. He is a decent man, and decency is
what he will bring to the White House.

We believe Bob Dole can return the
Presidency to its now shattered sense of majesty and importance. His sacrifice
in honorable pursuit of a better world represents the best of
America.

Our history is filled, unfortunately,
with contests in which ill-fated candidates fell to victors who had neither
their character nor their abilities. Several spring to mind: Adlai
Stevenson, Barry Goldwater, Walter Mondale, Wendell Willkie and Al
Smith.

On Election Day, Bob Dole may well join
this list of honorable losers, for the American public has long been a sucker
for the "Slick Willies" of the world. It's a cliché, but it's true:
Sometimes lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for. Given a
choice between a man who has displayed nothing but contempt for the traditions
of his office and a man who so clearly reveres his country's institutions and
is humbled by his service to them, we will choose honor over
expediency.

It is hard not to remark upon the paths
these two men have taken and the choices they have made. Both Mr. Dole
and Mr. Clinton hail from small-town America, that mystical place whose
natives are blessed with common sense, decency, patriotism and, yes,
character. Mr. Dole's life, service and sacrifice sum up all that the
American imagination associates with places like Russell, Kan. Mr. Dole
understands that freedom is dearly won and forcefully defended, that the life
of a nation matters more than the life of an individual, and that hard work
and sacrifice (and not indulgence and quick-buck scamming) are the nation's
brick and mortar.

He is a small-town man New Yorkers can
embrace because he also happens to be blunt, sardonic and utterly immune to
the hooey that is second nature to Mr. Clinton.

Mr. Clinton, coming from a similarly
underprivileged background and rooted, you would think, in traditional values,
is but a caricature of a generation that decided it was bigger than the
nation, the system and the dreaded Establishment. His governing style is
a product of his generation's self-indulgence and Little Rock's loose
political morals. He knows nothing of sacrifice and little of the real
world, for he has been talking, and talking, and talking, for the last
quarter-century. Historians will one day note that in 1996, the oldest
Presidential nominee in U.S. history was a man of action, while one of the
youngest incumbents was a sedentary yapper.

Mr. Dole entered politics to do
something. Mr. Clinton did so to be something.

The President's supporters haul out the
threadbare argument that a Dole Presidency would be a disaster for the Supreme
Court. What makes them so sure Mr. Clinton, the hypocrite who signed a
welfare reform bill so fundamentally abhorrent to his alleged values, would
appoint liberal justices? Besides, the track record of Republican
Supreme Court appointees isn't so bad: Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy
and David Souter are fine thinkers and political moderates.

Mr. Clinton and his surrogates have
expended much energy snickering at Mr. Dole's proposal to cut income
taxes by 15 percent. They, of course, are much more comfortable with
soaking the rich to pay for their constituency's favorite social
programs. Mr. Dole's proposal could be fundamentally sound, provided he
cuts the fat out of the bureaucracy's bloated payroll. We think he will
do just that.

Ultimately, though, all these issues are
so much background noise. Character is all that matters. If
granted another four years, Mr. Clinton will continue to embarrass himself,
the Presidency and the country.

The American Century's signature
generation has been Bob Dole's -- born in an age of muscle and sweat, tested
by unknowable sacrifice and, in its maturity, providing an example of lives
well lived, of causes well fought and of victories well earned.

Not for himself but for America and for
the Presidency, Bob Dole deserves one more victory.